


Luck Only Lends

by antonomasia09



Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016), Star Wars - All Media Types
Genre: Bounty Hunters, Gen, Inspired by Fanfiction, Minor Boba Fett/Bodhi Rook, Minor Galen Erso/Bodhi Rook, Pirates, Prisoner Bodhi Rook, Space Pirates, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-19
Updated: 2020-03-19
Packaged: 2021-02-28 16:25:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,477
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23220118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antonomasia09/pseuds/antonomasia09
Summary: Bodhi was caught by Boba Fett before he reached Jedha, and is now on his way back to face Imperial torture. But when Fett’s ship is overrun by pirates, the two of them must work together to escape.
Relationships: Boba Fett & Bodhi Rook
Comments: 5
Kudos: 33





	Luck Only Lends

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [I ship Boba Fett with (insert name here)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/13617453) by [FettsOnTop (GTFF)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GTFF/pseuds/FettsOnTop). 



> This is a continuation of chapter 3 (the Boba/Bodhi chapter) of FettsOnTop (GTFF)'s fic "I ship Boba Fett with (insert name here)." My thanks to FettsOnTop for letting me play in their universe, and also to [alyyks](https://archiveofourown.org/users/alyyks/pseuds/alyyks) for beta reading, brainstorming, and playing "made it worse."

It turned out, the holding cells along the walls of Boba Fett’s ship were just as secure as they looked from the outside. Cramped and uncomfortable too, and the cargo hold was quite chilly when Bodhi had nothing to do but sit and wait for the bounty hunter to deliver him to the Empire for torture and execution.

Bodhi’s nose throbbed with every beat of his heart and every breath he took, and he couldn’t stop thinking about both of those actions and how soon they were going to cease. He was bleeding again too, dark drops dripping slowly down his chin, and nothing to wipe them with but his flight suit and the back of his shaky hand.

At least he was on a ship and off of that planet, even if he wasn’t heading for Jedha. Bodhi brought his knees up and wrapped his arms around them as tightly as he could.

He had tried begging for mercy. He’d tried to explain to Fett why it was so important that the information he carried reach the Rebel Alliance, but Fett had just shrugged, uninterested in galactic politics. In his desperation, he’d even tried to convince Fett that he could match his own bounty if Fett would just let him go.

Fett had snorted. “You couldn’t even afford a drink in the cantina,” he said.

“I could,” Bodhi lied. “You weren’t drinking that swill either.”

It didn’t stop Fett from shoving Bodhi headfirst into the cell, although at least Fett had caught Bodhi before he did even more damage to his face.

“Nice try,” Fett said. “But even if you could pay me, I wouldn’t take it. I’ve got a professional reputation to uphold.”

So here Bodhi was, counting down the minutes until his death. It had taken him ten hours to reach that planet, pushing his ship’s engines as hard as he dared. Given that this Firespray wasn’t rattling like it was in danger of collapsing around them, Fett seemed to be returning Bodhi in a more leisurely manner.

His stomach chose that moment to remind him that he hadn’t been able to afford food at the cantina either, and it had been over a day since Galen Erso had pressed his lips to Bodhi’s one last lingering time and then sent him off on his mission.

“Shut up,” he told it. “It’s not like it’s going to matter soon anyway.”

“Not like what’s going to matter soon?” Fett said, sliding down the ladder from the cockpit into the cargo hold. Bodhi jumped, and groaned when the trickle of blood from his nose grew stronger.

“Nothing,” he said.

Fett came closer, and without warning, reached through the bars to grab Bodhi’s chin and tilt his head back. Bodhi tried to squirm away, but there was nowhere to go in the tiny cage, and Fett’s grip was too strong in any case.

And then Fett released him and backed away. Bodhi curled up even more tightly than he had before. Not that it would stop Fett from doing it again if he wanted, but Bodhi couldn’t stop shivering, his breath coming in small pants.

“Here,” Fett said, and Bodhi raised his head just enough to see the bounty hunter waving a piece of gauze at him. When he made no move to take it, not trusting Fett’s motivations, the man made a frustrated noise and thrust it through the bars, letting it float gently to the floor by Bodhi’s feet. A ration bar followed, and that was almost enough to make him reach out, but he couldn’t seem to get his body to move, pinned as he was by Fett’s intense gaze.

Fett shook his head and turned to climb back up to the cockpit. It wasn’t until Fett’s boots disappeared and Bodhi could hear the clang of them on the metal floor getting softer that he was able to uncurl enough to pick up the gauze and press it to his face.

***

In spite of his discomfort, Bodhi had finally managed to drift off into a light doze, when the ship exited hyperspace, reality compressing and expanding around him. He startled upright with a wince. They were there already? Surely the trip should have taken longer than that.

He waited, dread pooling in his stomach, for the bumpy shudder that would indicate that they had landed, but it didn’t come and it didn’t come and it didn’t come, and then...

Fett came sliding down the ladder again, but instead of coming to open Bodhi’s cell, he just stomped past, ignoring his prisoner completely.

“What’s going on?” Bodhi called as Fett disappeared into the shadows on the far side of the room. Fett didn’t answer, but as Bodhi continued to sit there, he realized he could take a guess: the hum of the engines was no longer vibrating through his bones. There must have been some kind of hyperdrive malfunction.

Bodhi fought the urge to laugh hysterically. He didn’t want to be delivered to the Empire, of course not, but with nothing to distract him, the anticipation was nearly overwhelming. He wanted to just be _done_.

Seconds passed, and then minutes. The temperature in the cargo hold was dropping even further without the engines to maintain it. Oxygen was fine, he thought — that must have been on a different system — but he was shivering uncontrollably now. Maybe he would die of hypothermia before Fett managed to collect the bounty. Would serve him right.

Bodhi’s teeth were chattering so loudly that he almost missed the scraping noise coming from the airlock to his left. “F-f-fett!” he tried to shout, but it came out unintelligible even to him.

With a shower of sparks, the airlock integrity was destroyed. Bodhi took a deep breath in anticipation of explosive decompression, but all that happened was that the section of metal was kicked inwards and a group of heavily-armed beings stepped through.

They fanned out, examining their surroundings, and spotted Bodhi immediately.

“Well well, what do we have here?” the closest one said, peering into the cell.

Bodhi pressed himself as far away as he could and said nothing. They weren’t stormtroopers, and they weren’t Alliance. Had to be pirates. Which meant that, if they found out who he was, not only would they hand him over to the Empire for the bounty, but they would have some fun along the way. He was better off in Fett’s hands.

“Leave him for now,” another one ordered. “He’s not going anywhere.”

“I bet he could be helpful,” the first one said. He tapped the bars to get Bodhi’s attention. “How many crew on board this ship?” he asked.

When Bodhi just continued to stare at him, the pirate pulled out a knife. “I asked you a question,” he said. “I expect an answer.”

The pirate took a step closer, and then abruptly fell over, smoke rising from a blaster bolt in his back. More shots quickly followed, flying out of nowhere from the darkness in the direction of the engine room. So Fett had noticed what was going on after all, then.

The pirates scattered, taking cover behind the various crates stacked in the cargo hold. They fired back blindly, and Bodhi could only hope that none of their shots went wide enough to hit him.

It seemed they were at an impasse. The pirates couldn’t tell where Fett was with enough accuracy to take him out. He was able to pick off any that left their cover, but there were at least a dozen of them and only one of him, and the ship continued to get steadily colder.

Finally, one of the pirates had had enough. She pulled a concussion grenade out of a pouch and leaned out just far enough to lob it in Fett’s direction. Bodhi had a fraction of a second to pray that the entire engine room didn’t light up before a boom rocked the ship, throwing him against the bars of his cage. He shook his head to clear it, and realized that there wasn’t any shooting happening anymore.

One by one, the pirates broke cover. The one who’d ordered the others to leave Bodhi earlier motioned a handful of them towards the engine room, and they returned dragging Fett’s limp body. His helmet was gone, probably knocked off in the explosion, and his curls were matted with blood where he must have hit his head.

Bodhi’s breath caught. The man had hit him, locked him up, and planned to turn him in for a reward, but before that there had been a moment between them, and it had been real. Bodhi didn’t think he wanted Fett dead.

The pirates dropped him in front of their leader, who prodded Fett with the toe of his boot. Fett groaned a little and tried to curl away. Alive, then. Bodhi couldn’t help feeling relieved.

“Go make sure there aren’t any others,” the leader ordered, and a couple of pirates broke away to search the ship. He turned his attention back on Fett, who was struggling to sit up. “I recognize that armor, bounty hunter,” he said. “There are a lot of people that would pay to get their hands on you.”

“They’ll regret it,” Fett snarled.

The pirate’s lip quirked. “Oh, I have no doubt,” he said. “What about that one?” he pointed at Bodhi, who held his breath. “What’s he worth?”

Fett shrugged. “Not much,” he said, no hesitation. “Just a bail jumper.” Bodhi forced himself not to react. Why did Fett lie? Was he trying to protect Bodhi?

“I always thought you preferred the big scores.”

“Those don’t come around every day. Fuel and food cost money. The big ones are just the ones that get noticed.”

“Fair enough,” the pirate said. “We might as well sell him to the spicers, then. Sounds like the payout would be bigger.”

Well, if Fett had been aiming to protect Bodhi, Bodhi was pretty sure he’d failed. He knew what conditions were like in the spice mines — he wouldn’t last long there. But at least his death there would come from a spider or from suffocation instead of at the pincers of an interrogation droid. Galen would have another chance to get his message out.

The rest of the pirates returned to report that there was no one else on board the ship.

“Excellent,” the leader said. “Get the bounty out of his cell and cuff them both. They’re coming on board our ship; they’re worth much less if they freeze to death in here. Then get the tethers in place, and we’ll tow this ship to the nearest scrapyard and see how much we can get if we sell it for parts.”

At that, Fett bared his teeth and tried to lunge at the pirate, who knocked him back down carelessly. Dazed as he was from the explosion, it still took three pirates sitting on him to be able to get the chains on his wrists and ankles. When they added a collar around his throat, he thrashed harder, and managed to bite one of them before they smacked him hard across the face with the butt of a blaster and then backed out of range. The blood dripping down Fett’s chin now matched Bodhi’s own.

They came for Bodhi next, and he didn’t put up a fight as they shot the lock off of his cell and dragged him out. He couldn’t quite get his limbs to move, stiff as they were from the cold and inactivity. Once they were done cuffing him, they pulled Fett up and marched both of their prisoners through the tube connecting the ships and onto the pirate vessel, along with every other valuable thing of Fett’s that they could find.

In spite of the danger he was still in, Bodhi couldn’t help sighing a little with relief as the warmth of the other ship hit him.

They were led to the holding cells and shoved into neighboring cages. Bodhi felt a kick of disappointment at being behind bars again so quickly, but squashed it down. As he left, the pirate that Fett had bitten gave the bounty hunter a sharp kick in the side, and Bodhi winced as he heard a definite snap.

Everything blurred and then wavered back into focus as the ship jumped to hyperspace.

Bodhi scooted as close as he could to the bars that separated them, difficult without the use of his hands or feet, and looked down at where Fett lay.

“Are you okay?” he said.

Fett managed to push himself to his knees, and then stayed there, panting. “I’m fine,” he said.

“Uh huh,” Bodhi said, skeptical, although he supposed it didn’t matter, since he couldn’t do anything to help anyway. He looked around, making sure that there were no pirates within earshot, and then asked, “Why did you lie about the bounty on me?”

Fett’s face darkened. “I’m not going to have some _fekking_ pirates collect on it,” he said.

“Oh.” There was no reason for Bodhi to be disappointed, but he couldn’t help wishing that the reason had been more personal. “I don’t suppose you have any experience escaping pirate ships?” he said.

Fett’s lips twitched. “I do,” he said. “But the circumstances were different.” He looked at Bodhi thoughtfully for a moment.

“I have a wire sewn into the seam of my left sleeve,” Fett said, holding his arms out. “Can you reach it?”

Bodhi’s heart leapt. He squeezed his bound hands through the bars and fumbled with the lining of Fett’s flight suit, fingers shaking with adrenaline and still numb from the cold. Eventually, he managed to tear it open and pull out a long, flexible bit of metal.

Fett held out a hand for it, but Bodhi hesitated. He had no idea how to pick a lock, but at least holding the wire gave him some measure of control over the situation. “What’s your plan?” he said.

Fett’s eyes narrowed. “I disable my cuffs and yours, open the cell doors, we steal some parts from their engine room, and then grab my ship and get the hell out of here.”

“And then what?” Bodhi said. “You toss me in a cage again and bring me back to the Empire? No thanks.”

“You won’t make it off this ship without me,” Fett said.

“Maybe not,” Bodhi said, and wiggled the wire. “But neither will you. I want you to promise me. Your word as a bounty hunter that you’ll let me go.”

Fett snarled and lunged for Bodhi, who pulled back out of Fett’s reach. “Your word,” he said.

“Fine,” Fett ground out. “Give me the damn wire.”

Bodhi held it out and let Fett snatch it from him, and watched as Fett set to work on his own hands, feet, and neck before jamming the wire into a spot on Bodhi’s cuffs that made them blink off and fall apart. Bodhi held up his wrists to examine the painful red marks on them while Fett went to work on the cell doors.

They crept cautiously out into the corridor. There were no shouts of alarm - no sign of guards at all, actually, which meant that either the pirates were very confident in their holding cells or just very stupid. Bodhi hoped it was both.

Fett was a little hunched over as they walked, and his hands were hovering near his body like he wanted to cradle his ribs but wanted to keep his hands free even more. His breathing sounded fast, but there was nothing Bodhi could do about it without a medical kit.

The door at the end of the hallway was closed and locked and behind it, through an inset glass window, they could see a pirate standing watch but looking bored.

Fett pried a panel off the wall using just his fingernails, and started ripping out wires. “Are you familiar with this kind of ship?” he asked.

Bodhi hadn’t gotten to see it from the outside, but based on the patterns of the bulkheads and the distinctive hum of the ship at lightspeed, he would guess it was a Corellian freighter of some kind, probably retrofitted with weaponry.

“I’ve never flown one, but I’ve looked at schematics,” he said.

“You know where the engine room is?”

Bodhi closed his eyes, picturing the layout he’d memorized during his pilot training. “Yes,” he said. “Lowest deck, aft of the ship.”

“Good,” Fett said. He pointed to a wire. “As soon as I pull that one, get ready to run.”

That was all the warning Bodhi got before Fett yanked the wire out of the wall and the door hissed open, startling the pirate on the other side.

“Hey, what?” the pirate started before Fett knocked him out with a single blow. Fett bent over with a wince to grab the pirate’s blaster, and then motioned Bodhi to follow him.

“Let’s go,” he said.

They moved quickly through the hallways, heading towards the back of the ship. When they reached a circular hatch along a wall, Fett held out a hand to stop Bodhi.

“Maintenance hatch,” he explained, inserting his wire into a space beside the access latch. Bodhi nervously kept watch down the hall.

When it popped open, Bodhi eyed the ladder behind it with dismay. “Are you actually going to be able to climb down that?” he asked.

“Yes,” Fett said, making an effort to straighten up and hide the spasm of pain that flashed across his face.

There was no point arguing with him. “After you, then,” Bodhi said, just as the shipwide intercom turned on and a slightly slurry voice swore creatively.

“The prisoners,” their former guard announced. “They’ve escaped.”

“ _Fierfek_ ,” Fett grunted and dove into the shaft, but instead of climbing down towards the engine room, he started going up. Bodhi followed close behind.

“Now what?” he asked.

“Now we commandeer this ship,” Fett declared. “Bridge is top deck, near the middle of the ship, right?”

“Yes,” Bodhi said, “But—”

“It’s that or they catch us and then toss us out an airlock because we’re more trouble than we’re worth,” Fett said. “They’ll be concentrating their search around the escape pods. They won’t expect us to come up here.”

Bodhi swallowed, remembering the EVA training he’d done and the way the vacuum of space felt like it was pressing at him on all sides, then adding in asphyxiation and multiplying the cold he’d felt on Fett’s ship by ten thousand fold. He didn’t want to go out an airlock. Commandeering the ship it was, then.

***

Fett slowed once they got near the bridge level, and Bodhi managed to not smack into him when he stopped completely. There was a faint scraping sound as Fett pushed the hatch open a fraction of an inch and peered out.

“Two guards at the end of the hall,” he whispered to Bodhi. “I think that’s where the bridge is. I can take them out and get the door open, you just need to keep an eye out for reinforcements.”

Bodhi nodded, relieved that he wasn’t going to be expected to do any fighting.

Fett crept further up the ladder, tensed his body, and then swung the hatch out fully with a single push and threw himself into the hallway. By the time Bodhi had scrambled out after him, both guards were lying on the ground, either unconscious or dead, and neither of them had had time to fire a shot.

One was missing his blaster, which was now hanging from Fett’s belt along with the first one he’d acquired, but the other pirate’s gun was on the floor inches from her hand. Bodhi shot a glance at Fett, who seemed to be wholly occupied with picking the door lock, and quickly stooped to grab the pistol. There was no good place to hide it in his flightsuit, but, after double-checking that the safety was engaged, he tucked it into his boot.

It wasn’t that he didn’t trust Fett to keep his promise. It was just that he wanted some extra reassurance, just in case.

Bodhi turned to watch the hallway, which remained quiet. It seemed Fett was right; their plan was reckless enough to be completely unexpected.

“Get ready,” Fett said, unclipping his blaster. “I’m not sure how many will be behind this door.”

Bodhi edged to the side of the hallway, hopefully out of the line of fire. Fett made one final twisting motion with his wire, and, as the door hissed open, he flung himself through, already firing.

Craning his neck just enough to peer inside without losing his cover, Bodhi could see that the bridge was a mess of smoke and streaking red lasers. There were screams and thuds, and then suddenly silence as the acrid fog rolled out into the corridor.

A figure appeared out of nowhere in front of Bodhi, and he let out a scream of his own, no time to reach for his weapon, but then the smoke cleared enough for him to see Fett beckoning him to follow.

Six bodies lay slumped over consoles or sprawled on the floor of the bridge. Bodhi was pretty sure the leader was among them.

Fett shoved one of the bodies off of its console and started pressing buttons with grim satisfaction. Bodhi staggered as the ship dropped out of hyperspace, and then jumped in surprise as the door to the hallway slammed shut, sealing the bridge once more. Warning lights started blinking.

“What are you doing?” Bodhi asked.

“Venting the atmosphere on the ship everywhere except the bridge,” Fett said, not even looking up.

“What?” Bodhi gasped. “But the pirates — they’ll die!”

“Them or me,” Fett said. “Why do you care? They were going to send you to the spice mines.”

“You were going to hand me over to the Empire,” Bodhi replied. “But I don’t want you dead. I don’t want _anyone_ dead. The things I’ve done… enough people have already died because of me.”

He took a step forward. “You don’t have to kill them; just seal off the section they’re in. By the time they get out we’ll have stolen the engine parts we need, fixed your ship, and been long gone.”

“Too risky,” Fett said. His blaster rose to point straight between Bodhi’s eyes. Bodhi froze.

“Are you going to try to stop me?” Fett said.

Bodhi wasn’t going to be able to get any closer without getting shot. “No,” he whispered.

“Good,” Fett said, and hit the button.

Sealed in the bridge, there wasn’t even a change in air pressure, but the whistle as all the air was sucked out of the hallway outside was audible. Bodhi knew it was his imagination, but he thought he could hear the screams of the pirates in the lower levels as they were sucked out into space as well. His vision got blurry, and Bodhi realized there were tears streaming down his face.

And then it was done. Fett didn’t look pleased, nor did he look saddened, and Bodhi turned away quickly to wipe his own eyes.

He moved over to a different console to pull up their location. Looked like they were closer to the Death Star’s last position than Bodhi would have liked, but the pirates had been heading towards Corellia, not Coruscant. With the hyperdrive engine, Bodhi would be able to make it to Jedha in just a couple of hours.

That was assuming Fett left the hyperdrive intact enough for travel, and didn’t try to catch and deliver Bodhi again.

Bodhi eyed him warily. Fett was ignoring him for the moment, calling up lists of plundered goods and engine schematics. “I’ll need to replace my alluvial damper and the power flux connector,” Fett said. “There should be spares on board here.”

“In the engine room,” Bodhi agreed. “I’ll go with you.”

“Fine,” Fett said. He unsealed the door, and now Bodhi’s ears did pop as the air from the bridge rushed out to mingle with the reduced atmosphere of the rest of the ship. The bodies that had been in the hallway were gone now, floating among the stars. Bodhi hoped they had been dead and not just unconscious before that happened.

They made their way down to the engine room in uncomfortable silence. Fett began methodically searching through the piles of spare parts scattered across the room, while Bodhi poked through them randomly, mostly just watching Fett to make sure the bounty hunter didn’t try dismantling anything important.

Fett found the first part he needed after about an hour of searching, and Bodhi stumbled across the other one shortly after that. He bent over to pick it up, casually sliding the blaster out of his boot as he did so, and turning to angle himself so that hopefully Fett wouldn’t see it.

“Found the connector,” he called, waving it at Fett, who immediately dropped the compressor coils he’d been sorting through and came over. Bodhi tossed it over once Fett was close enough, wanting to keep some distance between them.

“So I guess this is it, then,” he said. “You go back to your ship and I stay on this one, and we never see each other again.” He gripped his blaster tightly.

“Guess so,” Fett said. His eyes flickered to Bodhi’s hands, and Bodhi could tell that Fett knew exactly what was in them. “There’s one shot left in that,” he said. Bodhi didn’t dare look down to confirm, but cursed himself for not checking the charge level earlier. “Are you going to use it on me?”

“Do I need to?” Bodhi challenged, proud that he was able to keep his voice steady. 

Fett didn’t move. He was probably far away enough to be able to dodge any shot Bodhi took. “I keep my word,” he said.

“Right,” Bodhi breathed. He supposed he should thank Fett, but the idea of feeling gratitude for what the man had done made bile rise in his throat. “What will you tell the Empire?” he asked instead.

“That you didn’t make it to the bridge, and died with the pirates,” Fett said. “And I didn’t feel like taking a space walk to locate your body.”

Bodhi couldn’t help shuddering. That could easily have happened. “Will you get in trouble?”

Fett shrugged. “I won’t get paid. But there are other bounties.”

“Good luck with those, then,” Bodhi said.

“Thanks,” Fett said, then hesitated. “Whatever you’re on the run for. It’s big?”

It was. Big enough to turn the tide of a war that was barely even a war, just tiny needle pricks against a giant. “Yeah.”

Fett nodded. “You’re dead now,” he said. “Make it count.”

“I will,” Bodhi swore, and watched Fett turn around and vanish around a corner.


End file.
